Archive for the ‘Recap’ Category

Wow wow and wow. Marty carried this team to another win against the Canucks. He let in one goal from Taylor Pyatt, and after that decided that was enough.

JUMP! (For my love)

But he will not be getting any love, really, other than getting the 3rd star of the game.

The Swedes were definitely out in full force, on both teams. All 9 of them on the ice tonight played hard, and 2 of our Swedes managed to get a point. Loui Eriksson got the first Stars goal, from Matt Niskanen and Mike Modano on a power play. Then Loui got an assist from a great goal from Joel Lundqvist, his first goal in 11 months! Marty Turco also got an assist. I kept yelling at him to shoot it after the Canucks pulled their goalie, but sadly he did not hear me from my house. One day man, one day.

The three Stars were

Marty Turco

Loui Eriksson

Daniel Sedin

Tomorrow night the Stars will be taking on Chicago. My memory only goes back as far as 2003, and they haven’t won on Valentine’s Day My Birthday from at least that year on. (That game sucked, btw, the one in 03.) Cross your fingers!

Sunday evening, the Preds were in town and left a little deflated. They had been on a 4 game winning streak, only to be beaten 4-1 by the Stars.

The Preds were definitely no match for the Stars that night. Our first goal was our second short-handed goal of the season from Brian Sutherby after Mike Modano took a 4 minute double minor for hi-sticking (and causing injury to) Sullivan. Mark Parrish, Brad Richards and Steve Ott scored the other 3 goals that night. Jason Arnott got the lone goal for Nashville.

Then Wednesday, Gretzky and his Coyotes were in town. The last meeting between these two teams, both goalies got a shut out but Phoenix came out as the winner. It was the same score Wednesday, with the Stars coming up on the 0 column and it ending in regulation this time. It was a hard fought game between both sides. The Stars were getting plenty of chances, but just weren’t able to get anything past Ilya Bryzgalov who was obviously sick of losing. The team had been 0-6 since the All-Star break and were playing like a team ready for a win. Enver Lisin ended up with the lone goal of the night.

Now, onto something a little more amusing, this is one reason I love our beat writers; dedicating an entire post to whether or not Tipp should grow his stache back. Being that I’m a superstitious hockey fan, I vote no considering how well we did in the playoffs last year.

First off, I’ll get the bad news that Conner was sent back to the AHL, to open cap space for Avery to return to the roster. Of course, he won’t be playing and hopefully they can find a team so he can play again.

Now, onto the game. Holy cow. King Henrik had the flu, so the Rangers started their back up goalie Stephen Valiquette. That poor guy, I feel kinda bad for him. The Rangers started off the scoring, then the Stars attacked, especially in the third period. Here is the laydown of all the scoring.

The Stars fire was no match for that of the Flames, as the Stars beat them 3-1 Tuesday.

Calgary got on the board first, with a power play goal from Michael Cammalleri just under 7 minutes into the game. With under a minute remaining, Jere Lehtinen tied it up on the Stars power play with a tip-in. Only one goal was scored during the second period, and that was ANOTHER power play goal from rookie James Neal. And to put the finishing touches, with just over 3 minutes remaining in the game, Brad Richards made it 3-1, which would remain the final score.

The Stars came out hard, and stayed persistant, winning a lot of puck battles and kept the Flames scoring chances to a minimum. When he needed to make a save Marty Turco was there and looked like the great goalie he was last year in the playoffs. They are definitely looking good right now.

(I apologize for this being so late. I had every intention to update last night, but got distracted by the internet, mostly by failblog and this gem on youtube.)

That was more than you could say from Marty’s last shut out in the 1-0 shootout loss against the Coyotes on January 10th. The Stars took control and held it for 60 minutes last night in their game against the Thrashers. Not to take away from the Stars accomplishment, but the Thrashers didn’t seem to put up much of a fight, to be honest. Jere Lehtinen and Steve Ott got the goals to give the Stars a 2-0 win. A great way to start what they call the second half of the season. Let’s hope this trend continues.

In other news, yesterday the Stars assigned Fabian Brunnstrom to the Manitoba Moose. This is, of course, for conditioning since he has been out injured with a high ankle sprain. Not gonna lie, I’m a tad jealous of those going to the Moose game Thursday, where Brunnstrom will make his debut. I want to see Fabbity Fab and Fishsticks play again, especially together. Boo.

Yesterday was the 3rd of 6 meetings between the two teams this season. The Stars had been 0-2-0 against them this season, both losses being 3-2; one of which being a shootout loss.

Both teams seemed determine to get 2 points out of this game, and for the first two periods, it looked like it was going to be another game like the Coyotes, both goalies getting the shutout. But less than 7 minutes into the third, the LA Kings got up 1-0. Then under 5 minutes later, as Lehtinen is racing up the ice, Ribeiro passes him the puck. Lehtinen splits the D to make it 1-1.

With just over a minute remaining in the game, the Sydor shot the puck from the blue line, where Ribeiro tipped it in to give them a 2-1 lead. After the goal, Johnson went after Otter, and it ended up being 4-on-4. The Kings pulled Ersberg to make it 5-on-4 and managed to get one past a scrambling Turco with 17 seconds left in the game.

This one ended up needing to go to a shootout.

Alexander Frolov was up first, which Marty got a hold of

Mike Ribeiro decided not to be fancy and shot it in to the put the Stars up 1-0

Dustin Brown went up the middle, then got his shot off fast only for Marty to make a fantastic glove save

Jere Lehtinen went in and shot only to have Ersberg deflect it high over the net

Jack Johnson had the game on his shoulders, only to have Marty tell him no and get the 3-2 victory.

The Three Stars of the game were

Jere Lehtinen

Dustin Brown

Mike Ribeiro

And each player had a goal and an assist in the game. Jere Lehtinen is currently on a 3-game point streak, earning 1 goal and 3 assists for 4 points.
It was a very good well fought game for both teams. They won’t meet again until March at the Staples Center, and yours truely will be there to root on my team!

Tuesday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings was a game I was very much dreading after the embarrassment that was the game on 8th. (Holy run on sentence Batman!) I missed the first few minutes due to driving home from the office. Why does work always get in the way of hockey? It’s really uncool. Back to the subject, even listening on the radio, I could hear the Stars were already playing better. Instead of hearing from Ralph and Ludy about the Red Wings pretty much skating circles around us, it was the other way around. They did manage to give me some of the best news I’ve heard all year; the Red Wings are #30 on the road penalty kill. LOLZWUT? Who would’ve ever thought the Red Wings would be last in anything. Made my life.

I must admit though, after the first 2 Detroit goals, I accepted that this would probably be another embarrassment. But the Stars weren’t goin’ down like that. Nicklas Grossman got his first regular season goal EVER to cut the Wings lead in half. Only to have them get a 3rd goal with a little over 2 minutes left. Whatever Wings. That won’t happen in our house. Stephane Robidas and Mark Parrish tied it in the second period, and outshot the Wings like crazy. The Wings managed to take the lead again in the 3rd, only to have the Stars even it up again with 3 minutes left to force it into overtime. Even in overtime, the Stars took control. And some gritty work by stupid Matt Niskanen and Trevor Daley got them the overtime win. They got 49 shots on the Red Wings, which really has been unheard of in the last decade. TAKE THAT WINGS! Hmph. Pleasedon’tkillusnexttime.

So coming off that fantabulous win, the Stars took on the Buffalo Sabres tonight. They started with the same energy they played with Monday, getting 3 goals before allowing one on themselves in the second period. It was downhill from there. Fast. On rollerblades. Being chased by cats with big teeth. After Buffalo got their second goal, the Stars gave themselves another 2 point lead, only to have that erased within 20 seconds in the third period. What the hell was that?! It ended up going to overtime, where Buffalo still held momentum and then to a shootout. Which the Stars lost in the 6th round. The other awful news was Robi took a bad hit and wasn’t seen again. Which is enough to stress me out beyond belief. And no one is telling me anything. And it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I can’t believe I missed Ugly Betty AND THE RETURN OF ELIZABETH COURDAY ON ER for this crap.

I honestly can’t think of a word to describe the Stars play last night in the 6-1 loss to Detroit last night other than pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

The Stars wanted to use this game as a measuring stick of the progress over the last month. Well, I would find that impossible. The Stars that took the ice against the Red Wings was not the team that has played together the last month. They weren’t the team that played together, that trusted each other, none of that. I don’t even know what else to say.

First off, the Stars came home from their very cold weekend trip in Canada with 2 points out of 4. Not too shabby.

The first game against the Oilers was a tad sad on our end. The Oilers took control of the game and made sure they kept it. The final ended up being 4-1, with James Neal getting the lone Stars goal. Barchie got into 2 fights and got a 10 minute misconduct. Landon Wilson got into a fight of his own and ended up hitting the ice pretty hard and got a rib injury. Thank goodness the Stars had already called up Chris Conner.

Sunday went much better for the Stars against the Canucks. It was an evenly matched game, I thought. Both teams played well, and both had a fair amount of chances. It ended up going to a shootout, and the Stars pulled the 2 points thanks to Marty and rookie James Neal, who got the winning shoot out goal.

Onto the best news of all, the Stars will in fact have a player in the All-Star game this year. That player is the wonderful Mike Modano! He is making his 7th All-Star appearance in his career. I couldn’t think of a better person on our team to get it. He is having a great season for being so “old”, having 13 goals and assists for 26 points, best for 4th on the team! You can see the rest of the roster here.

The YoungStars will be announced Friday, and they’d be crazy not to take Neal.

New Years Eve hasn’t been the best for the Stars since 2002, which was their last win on the festive night. The Stars made sure they ended 2008 with a bang, winning 4-2 over the New Jersey Devils. Granted, the Devil’s team was tired having played the night before in St Louis. The Stars used that to their advantage.

Despite having played the night before, the Devils came out strong at the beginning of the first. The Stars got into penalty trouble because of this, but it was Loui Eriksson that got the scoring started. He got the Stars first short-handed goal of the season to put them up 1-0. The Devils came back to make the score 2-1 in their favor by the end of the second.

The Stars came out fighting in the second period, forcing the momentum going their way. With hit after hit and the Devils taking penalty after penalty, Landon Wilson tied the game and Mark Parrish got a power play goal to give the Stars their second lead of the game. They held the Devils to only 2 shots the entire period.

They came out hot again in the third, getting to finish a 5-on-3 that had transpired at the end of the second. Stars didn’t manage to get a goal, but it helped keep the momentum where they needed it. To finish off the night, Loui Eriksson got his 20th goal of the season on the empty net to make the final 4-2.

All in all, it was a fantastic win for the Stars. They played as a team, every player playing their role. I think this was the first game, also, that we really got to see what Brian Sutherby is able to do. 2009 is definitely looking up.